


A Little Good

by AgentStannerShipper



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Demons can be good too, M/M, crowley gives advice, crowley is a softy at heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 22:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18926596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: Someone comes in while Crowley is minding the shop, but it's not a book she needs.





	A Little Good

**Author's Note:**

> For a friend. Hope it helps.

“We’re closed,” Crowley called when the bell over the bookshop door tinkled. He didn’t even look up. His feet were propped up on the counter as he leaned back, tipping his stool onto the back two legs and balanced with a prayer (well, not really a _prayer_ ). He was waiting for Aziraphale to get back, and he knew without looking that whoever had walked in was not Aziraphale. Crowley had gotten rather good at identifying the angel just by his presence over the years, and every time Aziraphale walked into a room, it felt like home.

This person’s presence did not feel like home, unless that home was filled with tension and upset. A stuttering voice answered him. “S-sorry. I just need a minute.”

Crowley blinked once, then twice, then looked up, peering at the entryway from behind his glasses. A girl trembled in the doorway. Well, not really a girl, Crowley corrected in his head, a young woman, probably in her twenties or so, but she looked younger because of the trembling. He straightened up, the stool returning safely to four legs again.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Crowley swung over the counter – Aziraphale hated when he did that, but Aziraphale wasn’t there – and landed lithely on his feet. He gestured the woman farther into the shop, sitting her down in Aziraphale’s favourite plush armchair and dropping onto the coffee table in front of her, elbows resting on his knees and propping up his chin. “You look about ready to cry,” he said bluntly.

She sniffed. He passed her a tissue from thin air. She didn’t appear to notice as she took it. “I’m alright, really,” she said after a moment. “I just…I just need a minute, that’s all.”

“You’ve got one,” Crowley said. He leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him and cocking his head. “What’s got you so upset you can’t read a closed sign, then?”

She shrugged helplessly. “There’s just so much going on,” she mumbled. She sniffed again and blew her nose into the tissue. Crowley winced and passed her another. “Rent is due and my boss is late with my check, and I was supposed to pick it up today but my car broke down and I missed the train, and my mum swung by but of course all she did was ask if I was putting on weight and why hadn’t I found a nice man to help me with the rent even though she _knows_ I don’t like men and…and…” She took three huge, gulping breathes and squeezed her eyes shut. “It just feels like the world is crashing down on you sometimes, you know? And you’ve got to hold it all up yourself.”

Crowley nodded sympathetically. As a survivor of an almost-apocalypse and a former denizen of Hell, he was well aware of the pressure a person could be put under, and how awful it was to go it alone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Life sucks sometimes, doesn’t it?”

She gave him a funny look. “Isn’t this the part where you tell me that everything’s going to be alright? That I must be exaggerating, and that tomorrow I’ll think it was silly to worry over nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing to me,” Crowley said. “Problems are problems. They don’t go away by thinking good thoughts at them.”

She stared. Crowley shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying you’re not gonna be fine. You probably will be. You’ll probably take a couple deep breaths, leave this shop, and sort the problems out because that’s what humans do. It’s probably going to suck, but you’ll do it, and in hindsight things will look fine. But that doesn’t mean that, in this moment, everything isn’t a lot to tackle.”

“So what do I do?”

“You sit here and cry,” Crowley said. “Or whatever you need to do to get all that excess emotion out of your body. Wring it out, and you’ll find some room to think again. And then pick a problem and fix it. Then pick a different problem. Keep doing that, and eventually, no more problems.”

The woman smiled faintly. “That easy?”

Crowley shrugged. “Creating problems is kind of what I do. Or did, anyway. Makes knowing how to fix them a lot simpler.”

“Creating problems?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Crowley waved it off. “The important thing is that even if everything looks huge and overwhelming and scary right now, it’s really not all that bad. Or it won’t be, soon.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Then the woman dried her eyes. “I feel a little better now, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Crowley pushed himself to his feet and offered her a hand up. “Probably just as well. It’s not really my shop, see. I’m just minding it until my husband gets back. You’re not a customer, so he probably won’t glower, but he’s a right bleeding heart and he might smother you to death, and then where will you be?” He winked at her, and even through the glasses, she got it.

She grinned. “Your husband?”

“Fussy bastard,” Crowley said affectionately. “Likes to help people a little too much.”

“And you don’t like to help people?” she teased.

“I like to help people the right amount.”

He walked her to the door and held it open for her. “I’d say stop by again, but my husband _really_ doesn’t like customers.”

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, though.”

“Anytime.”

As she walked off, Aziraphale returned. He gave Crowley a suspicious look as the door swung shut behind him. “You didn’t sell her anything, did you? I left the closed sign up for a reason.”

“Don’t worry about it, angel,” Crowley said. He sauntered across the floor, hopped the desk – grinning at Aziraphale’s glare – and settled back on his stool again, tilting the legs back even further. “She just needed a little help, that’s all.”

“Help?”

“Advice, really.”

Aziraphale blinked. His glare turned into a sappy, affectionate smile. “I think I’m rubbing off on you, my dear.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Crowley waved a hand and rolled his eyes. “I did a good thing. I do good things sometimes. Leave it be, angel.”

Aziraphale dropped the subject, but he smiled smugly for the rest of the evening.

And the next day, somewhere across the city, a young woman found her rent paid for, a bonus from an apologetic employer, and the phone number of the cute girl who worked at her favourite café stuck to the windshield of her miraculously repaired car. It was probably a little much, Crowley admitted to himself, but it made him feel good. And not that he would ever tell Aziraphale, but it was a nice feeling.


End file.
